However, during this period beginning 1890, the business started experiencing an economic downturn, as were other manufacturing companies, whereby the market price of steel products went down thereby reducing the amount of profits. As a result, the general manager, Henry Frick, proposed a plan to reduce the cost of production by lowering wages and forcing workers to break ranks with the AA, which did not go down well with the workers (Krause, 1992). Without AA’s presence, Frick felt that he would be in full control of the human resources.
As a result, the employees embarked on a strike, which lasted for approximately 4 months. The workers, during this period, were involved in an armed conflict with the Pinkertons, who were armed men hired by Frick to suppress the strikers, a conflict which contributed to the death of 9 workers and 7 Pinkertons while several others suffered bullet injuries. At the end of these confrontations, the workers were defeated and they had to accept the terms set down by Frick in order to be allowed to continue working in the company while the leaders of the strike were fired and subjected to court proceedings though no one was sent to prison (Krause, 1992).
The Pullman Strike of 1894 As stated earlier, the early 1890s was a period of economic downturns and most of the industries were affected (Salvatore, 1999). The Pullman Palace car Industry, based in Pullman, Illinois, was one of those companies, which suffered reduced revenues as a result of low demand for their products, which basically included train cars. As a counter measure, the management decided to cut wages and thereafter gave deaf ear to the workers complaints, which included low wages, overworking and high cost of living.
As a result, more than 3000 employees of the company decided to go on strike, which was later supported by the American Railway Union, which significantly increased the number to more than 100000 individual members from 26 states, who were advised to boycott any operations that involved cars from the Pullman industry (Salvatore, 1999). This is a strike which begun on May 11, 1894 to August 2, 1894. The reason for the conclusion of the strike was that the then president Cleveland sent in federal and state troops to crush the strike specially because it was interfering with the deliver of mail and this had begun to disgust the general public, who were shifting their support to the government.
The Union leaders were arrested while more than 20 workers lost their lives in the process. Pullman employees tried to negotiate for an unconditional reinstatement to their former positions but the management refused to accept and instead forced them to sign contracts, which forbid them from joining any labor unions failure to which they would lose their jobs. The workers, while on strike, contributed to the destruction of property and loss of revenues especially for the railway line approximated to more than $4 million as per the then value of the dollar.
The workers also lost more than $1 million in terms of wages not forgetting the magnitude of human labor dedicated by the security organs to crush the strike (Salvatore, 1999). Textile Workers Strike of 1934 The Textile Workers Strike of 1934 was an event in the US history, which was organized by the United Textile Workers of America (UTW), a union whose membership
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